Consequences
by openattheclose
Summary: Pre and Post Supremacy It starts and ends with three things: Water, a bullet, and a choice. JasonMarie


**Name: **Consequences  
**Rating: **K  
**Summary:** It starts and ends with three things: Water, a bullet, and a choice. Pre and Post Supremacy.  
**Pairing: **Jason/Marie  
**Disclaimer: **If I owned the Bourne series, the following line would not exist: 'We will both of us burn.' However, it does, and it's safe to say I don't own it based on that.  
**Spoilers: **Identity and Supremacy-but you wouldn't be reading this if you haven't seen them, right? Riiiiight?

* * *

'You made a choice.'

She's said it a hundred times and this time is no different. Same voice, too quiet to make an impact but one that does anyway. The town is different, the outdoor café they are sitting in is different, the metal of the circular table underneath his hands is different.

She is the same.

'To turn away from it all. You knew it was wrong, you understood-'

Her voice hitches slightly and she turns away, filling her eyes with the sunlight pouring into the crowded street. Her mouth curves in a frown, looking straight ahead but seeing something entirely different.

He doesn't ask which inevitably painful memory she's reliving, but lets the moment pass, watching her face cloud with dread and feeling guilty for not changing it.

'Marie.'

She looks back, surprised, as though she forgot he was there. The argument that never made it past her lips resurfaces again. 'You shouldn't regret things someone else did,' she murmurs.

He doesn't argue, having accepted the way she views him as a different person than the one in his past. If anything, it gives him a way to feel less guilty. And her, too, though she'd never admit it.

She doesn't seem perturbed by his lack of reply, instead looking down at the wooden table and the cold tea cup sitting atop it. A breeze brushes a braid of brown hair over her shoulder and she fiddles with it, fingers grasping loosely at the small blue beads she's slipped along it.

It's such an innocent action, compared to the previous frown upon her face, that it causes him to smile.

She looks up in time to see it and immediately looks startled. His smile widens.

'You seem shocked a lot today.'

She returns it.

* * *

Between the nightmares, the scattered reminders of things Jason would rather forget, there lies a strange sense of home and normality here. He's not sure whether this is a result of Marie trying to make everything as normal as she can, or simply her presence in itself, but he likes it all the same.

Now he sits in their house's small kitchen, watching Marie as she busied herself with cooking and speed-talking. Even if he never replies, save for a quiet 'yeah' or 'mm', she knows he's listening.

Suddenly she stops, mid-sentence, hands still dancing around the oven.

'What made you come back, anyway?'

'To?'

'Mykonos.'

Startled, a grin flashes across Jason's face. 'Isn't that self-explanatory?'

'No, I meant-' Marie ducked down next to the wooden cupboards again, trying to hide the smile spreading across her own face in an attempt to be serious, 'What made that time different from Eamon's?'

Jason's grin disappears. 'I wasn't in any danger then.'

'You aren't now.'

Her voice has lost the carefree edge to it, and she says the words too slowly to hide how sincerely she means them.

'We've talked about this.'

'Correction.' Marie is standing up now, moving closer to him. She's frowning. '_I _talk about it. You just refuse to change your viewpoint.'

'I'm persistent.'

'That's for sure.' She sighs, giving up, and moving closer still to slip her arms around his neck. 'Only someone as persistent as you could refuse to change your mind like this. Without even telling me _what_ you're running from.'

'You know what.'

'Sometimes I think it's more than one thing.'

'Marie.' Jason's tone is almost disapproving. She in turn frowns and extracts herself from him, fiddling with the oven again and increasing his guilt. 'I told you I'd protect us, didn't I?'

'Not from something that wasn't a threat.'

'It's always a threat.'

'Then why did you come back? You said you weren't in any danger then, what makes now so different?'

Jason closes his eyes and leans further back against the counter, suddenly weary. 'I am always in danger.'

'But then-'

'Then I didn't see it. Or maybe I did, and my need for you overpowered my need for safety. I don't know.' He opens his eyes again and she is staring at him, frown less prominent and arms folded. 'Don't make me choose between you and feeling secure.'

Marie's frown dissolves completely and she shakes her head. 'I'd never make you do that.'

The oven beeps, and she bends down, fingers grasping at the smooth metal handle. Her next words are quiet; Jason might not have heard them if there had been any other noise in the room. 'You've chosen enough already.'

* * *

The sheets are too hot, slick with sweat and fear, the kind only more scrambled visions of Jason's past can bring. It is because of this that he hunches away from them now, breathing too fast and too jagged.

'A new one?'

The voice is Marie's, quiet, concerned. Jason feels her hand slide along his shoulder and revels momentarily in the sense of sanity it brings to his burning skin.

'Old.' He looks over at her quickly, noticing the purple tint under her eyes. 'I didn't mean to wake you.'

'You were shaking.'

_That's new. _Jason's mouth is set firm as he considers the implications of it.

There was another moment of silence, Marie's calming hand still held at his shoulder, Jason's breathing still attempting to slow.

'How old?'

'I haven't had it since the hotel.'

Marie does not ask him which hotel; her mind only falls on one. She frowns slightly. The memory of that night is by all accounts an almost happy one, and she does not wish to tarnish it.

She lets herself remember seeing him crouched in the hotel's single chair, staring out at the starless sky with a strange expression. How he'd described it as jumbled images and feelings-a rail, a gunshot, and the endless depths of water that lay below.

'Marseilles,' she murmurs quietly, more to herself than him. He nods.

'Were you relieved when he…'

Marie does not finish, as thought saying his name aloud will somehow taint her words.

'Conklin,' Jason fills in for her.

'Yes, him. Were you relieved when he made you remember?'

Marie's voice is tentative. The fact that Jason made a choice to end his previous life is something she falls back upon so often, forcing him to do the same. But he has never explained fully the single moment when he realized he made such a choice.

'No,' he tells her, looking away. 'It's unnerving to think that at that moment, they knew me more than I knew myself. That they still do.'

In spite of their situation, Marie laughs slightly. 'I think I know you better than them now.'

'True. But you don't know the assassin it was their job to create.'

Jason turns to look at her as he says it. His face is calmer than before, breathing back to normal.

'I don't want to know him.'

The edges around Jason's face tighten again. Marie notices and bends closer, kissing the space where her hand had been, moving her other hand up to trace his cheek.

'_I don't want to know him.'_

Jason wonders bitterly if she'll ever have to.

* * *

She does.

A million times this scenario has played in his mind, his nightmares, but nothing could prepare him for the reality of it. Marie's worried, pleading voice isn't making in any better.

'Don't do it, Jason. I don't want you to do it!'

All the times she has told him, over and over, of how the man he is now is different from the one in his past, about how he will never be forced to become that man again-they all amount to nothing.

'I told them what would happen.'

This is true, but it isn't helping their situation any. The car seems to be moving too slowly across the bridge and Jason wills it to go faster. He can bail, and Marie can meet up with him later at the shack. They can run, again. Just as before, but more careful this time.

'We don't have a choice,' he says sharply, interrupting her protests.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows they were the wrong thing to say. He meant that he would have never made the choice to find her and keep her safe if he didn't care about her. He meant them, together; he meant their only choice was to run like this.

'Yes you do.'

Marie has not misinterpreted his meaning, she has simply repeated the belief she has already expressed to him a thousand times.

'_You always have a choice.'_

In one seemingly endless second, Jason's eyes lock with hers. He wants to apologize, rephrase himself.

She looks away, and too suddenly for him to even comprehend it, the glass behind them shatters.

There are too many things to consider then. Each one fights for prominence in Jason's mind. Too late, he grabs the wheel, struggling to force the car to keep going.

The bridge's edge crumbles upon contact and suddenly the car is sinking, drowning in the water. Jason tries to pull away from the wheel and force open the door. The handle is jammed, but eventually the door swings open, giving away to cold green depths.

The one thought that he has forced his mind from thinking about, lest he break down completely, suddenly fills him, forcing him to swim around to the other side of the car and wrench the door from the other side.

'_I made a choice as well. Not to feel anything for you, I never had a choice in that_--_but to stay with you. I don't regret it.'_

They're Marie's words, but she's not saying them. Her lips are closed, cold.

She's not saying anything.

Jason is moving as fast as he can, dragging her limp form from the car. His hand is tangled among her hair, his own lips pressing desperately to hers.

He can still hear her voice clearly, ringing in his mind as loud as his own racing heartbeat. The water is numbing his senses.

The voice-_her_ voice-starts to fade.

Marie's lips are not parting against Jason's frantic breaths. A strand of hair slides over her face, her face illuminated in the water's scattered light.

Jason stares, feeling her too-cold skin underneath his hand and seeing her almost peaceful expression, as though her worst fear becoming a reality has resulted in there being nothing left for her to fear for.

He can feel the pain and denial already beginning to settle in his chest, impossible to ignore. Slowly he forces himself to let go and watch as the water drags her away, down…

'_I don't regret it.'_

She is the most ill-fated choice he will ever make.

* * *

Brindisi is warm, sunny, close to water. Everything that had become familiar to them, despite the unwarranted danger of developing such a reliable pattern.

From where Jason stands now, he can see their apartment. It lies alongside the beach, with a white metal rail overlooking the calm waters below. It is on this balcony that Jason stands, staring straight ahead and seeing something entirely different.

Marie waits on the balcony when he is running, scanning the shoreline impatiently with a worried crease in her forehead. Jason tries to make as much noise as possible when he arrives, shutting the door behind him loudly, so as not to surprise her when his hand reaches her waist. She turns around too quickly to be calm, but relief clouds her eyes once she sees its him. She opens her mouth to say something but is cut off when Jason takes her face in his hands and kisses her.

Marie's lips are warm, and her own arms tighten around him. When he finally breaks away and lets his hands drop she only presses herself closer, head resting against his shoulder.

'I was looking for you,' she says quietly. 'You'd been gone hours. I was worried…'

'I was running.'

The reply is short, simple, and somehow harsh. Marie pulls back and observes Jason's face carefully, as though he is hiding something from her.

'You're always running.'

'I know.

She is still examining him, squinting in the bright light, but she soon gives up. A smile forms as she turns away.

From where Jason stands now, he can still see her. He can feel the warmth of her breath and her body against his, see her tentative smile.

The realization that he will never truly see these things again hurts harder than it usually does.

Numb and seemingly emotionless, Jason glances down at his watch. In two hours he will be at the airport, waiting to board a plane. Away from here, where he shouldn't have come in the first place. There is nothing left for him here.

On impulse, he reaches into his pocket and removes the only photograph he has kept, if only to make the delusion of Marie seem a little less real.

He does not remember her in most of the ways he could've; ways tainted with persistence and fear and failed choices.

This is how he remembers her: Happy and innocent, eyes filled with love and hope, arms around him tightly.

Turned towards the light.

* * *

**I planned to take a hiatus from Bourne fic, but this was written a while ago and already uploaed at the livejournal community for the trilogy, so what the heck.**

**Hope you liked it.**

**-Tigeress-10**


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